‘Earliest ever’ form of English discovered
London: Archaeologists have discovered a 500-year-old inscription on a cathedral wall in Britain, which they claim is the earliest ever form of the English language.
However, they have not yet been able to decipher the black letters found on the wall in Salisbury Cathedral.
“The cathedral’s conservators quite unexpectedly found some beautifully written English text behind the Henry Hyde Monument on the cathedral’s south aisle wall when the monument was temporarily removed as part of ongoing schedule of work,” the Daily Mail quoted the cathedral’s archaeologist Tim Tatton Brown as saying. “I originally surmised that the text dated from the 16th century, bearing in mind that the monument was erected soon after 1660. However, our researches now suggest it was written a century earlier and therefore pre-dates Reformation,” said Brown. “Study by specialist academics is leaning towards the text being written in the 15th century, a period when English was, for the very first time, being used just occasionally in preference to Latin,” he said. Experts in deciphering similar messages have attempt to find the meaning of the inscription but have so far failed. Dr John Crook, who produced a digitally-enhanced image of the text, said he had found one line which read “and we are c...” but the rest was illegible. “There seems to be a phrase but so far we have not been able to work out more,” Dr Crook said.   —PTI
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